Urban Literacies showcases cutting-edge perspectives on urban education and language and literacy by respected junior and senior scholars, researchers, and teacher educators. The authors explore--through various theoretical orientations and diverse methodologies--meanings of urban education in the lives of students and their families across three…

Drawing on examples from classroom practice, this article explores implications of regarding multiliteracies pedagogy in early childhood settings as relationally and culturally situated. The author argues that investigating human dimensions of multiliteracies pedagogy involves interrogating assumptions about children and their capacities--viewing…

The aim of this mixed methods research study was to examine the construction of adolescents' bi-cultural identities through an exploration of their social practices on the social networking site, Ning. More specifically, we ask: (1) how are new Canadian and first-generation adolescents' bi-cultural identities shaped and performed as they use…

This paper focuses on the lived curriculum from the vantage of the students in a case study of a Sino-Canada transnational education programme in China. The programme consisted of subject area curricula transplanted from Ontario, Canada, and taught in English, as well as subject area curricula from Mainland China that was taught in Mandarin. The…

This ethnographic study of two classrooms examines to what extent, if at all, the introduction of multimodal and Digital Video composing as a literacy tool early in two teachers' careers had a transformative effect on their teaching and their students' learning. During long term participant observation in the classes of two English…

Visual texts, such as photographs, paintings, film, political cartoons, maps, charts, and graphs are important resources used for a variety of purposes in the history classroom. Aligning instructional use of visual texts to key developmental skills within the area of historical thinking should be a central concern to teachers of historical…

Participatory culture, in which citizens feel and exercise the agency of being cocreators of their culture and not just passive consumers of culture created by others, depends on widespread literacies of participation. One can't participate without knowing how. And cultural participation depends on a social component that is not easily learned…

The dual purposes of this review are, first, to synthesize the extant research on biliteracy, focusing particularly on children and youths and, second, to clarify key terms and phenomena in this developing field. The review is organized into three areas of research: (1) individual biliteracy development, (2) biliteracy in family and community…

Any school interested in preparing students for learning and working in 21st century academic and job settings needs this resource to explain to teachers the new skills students need and provide teachers with tools to teach and reinforce these skills. Based on the work of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, this action tool defines what…

Although often neglected in language textbooks and classrooms, sociopragmatic and multiliteracy skills are crucial elements in language learning that language educators should not disregard. This article investigates whether a social networking community (SNC) website such as Facebook can be exploited in the context of an intermediate foreign…

Using his own experiences as a reader, the author advocates for increased attention to diverse literatures. Since joining National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in 1997, the author has worked with members who include preservice, beginning, and experienced educators and scholars; they have formed committees and founded groups for…

This paper explores some of the processes through which an educational policy agenda can be generated in the media sphere. It casts light on the roles of journalists and various types of expert in these processes as they pertain to critical literacy. I argue for the usefulness of cross-field performance as a concept which helps to illuminate the…

Scholars have argued that imprecise data graphics, specifically those displaying decorative dimensionality of data, may lead to inaccurate interpretations. Empirical tests of decorative dimensionality have produced mixed results. The literature also suggests that the effects of decorative dimensionality may depend on the cognitive demand of a…

Within the school library community, there have been persuasive calls for school librarians to contribute to science learning. We present a conceptual framework that links national standards of science education ("Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas," referred to as…

This quasi-experimental, mixed model study explored the use of an instructional approach that provided direct instruction and experiences in multicultural education while empowering preservice teachers to examine their perspectives using a hybrid classroom format. The purpose of the study was to explore preservice teachers' attitudes and…